Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said over the weekend that all Democrats in the chamber will vote against the “big beautiful bill” championed by the House and President Trump, despite provisions within the legislation that benefit nearly all Americans.
“This is not beautiful. This bill is downright ugly— a job killer, a price raiser, a care slasher, and massive pile on to the national debt,” Schumer claimed without explanation in a statement to the New York Daily News.
Democrats failed to block the bill in the House last week, as an all-night session ended with a narrow 215-214 vote in favor of President Trump’s sweeping, 1,000-plus-page legislative package to advance his economic agenda.
The GOP is pushing to extend $4.5 trillion in tax breaks crafted during Trump’s first term, while also introducing additional cuts. Among them: eliminating taxes on service industry tips and overtime pay, the outlet reported, adding that Trump campaigned on those specific cuts. Former Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, also championed no taxes on tips.
Schumer falsely claimed that the bill is a “handout to billionaires,” while also adding it could strip Medicaid coverage from up to 14 million Americans, force hospital closures, and leave food pantries and soup kitchens underfunded and overwhelmed.
Republicans and the president have repeatedly said the only ‘cuts’ to benefits programs will come in the form of eliminating identified waste, fraud, and abuse — something Democrats used to favor, too.
“There’s not just a little laundry list of reasons why this bill is so bad — there’s pages and pages of bill text people can read for themselves that so clearly hurt everyday Americans, disproportionally boost billionaires who don’t need help, and pile onto the national debt at a time when the president is already choking the nation’s economy,” Schumer claimed. “That’s why Senate Democrats oppose this just-passed bill and will work to shine light on it so our Republicans act.”
Extending Trump’s expiring 2017 tax cuts—a central feature of the legislative package—along with provisions to eliminate taxes on tips and overtime pay, is projected to add trillions of dollars to the national deficit over the next ten years, The Hill reported.
But Trump and his team have countered that claim by arguing that the legislation would unleash American entrepreneurialism and expand annual gross domestic product growth to as much as 3 percent, which, they say, will offset deficits.
The additional revenue, the White House says, will then begin to chip away at the deficit and lower it over time.
Alongside the tax cuts, House Republicans have introduced a series of proposals aimed at reducing federal spending by more than $1 trillion over the next several years. A significant portion of those savings is expected to come from reforms to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
The White House has asserted that the bill will not contribute to the deficit, while Republicans have worked to challenge cost estimates from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Still, some conservative lawmakers argue that additional steps are necessary to reduce the nation’s deficits in the years ahead, pointing to the U.S. national debt, which now exceeds $36 trillion.
Trump has urged the Senate to act swiftly on the bill, as Congress approaches a midsummer deadline to raise the debt ceiling and avoid a potential national default. The legislation includes a provision to increase the debt ceiling by $4 trillion, raising the cap on how much the Treasury Department can borrow to meet the nation’s financial obligations.
Some Republicans support the higher limit to avoid a contentious debt ceiling battle with Democrats ahead of next year’s midterm elections, while others in the conservative wing are pushing for a lower increase, citing fiscal concerns.